(Heads up: the song titles are linked to dance craze videos. Use your judgment when clicking through at work. You have been warned. I am also hereby indemnifying myself from blame for any earworms that may result.)What do the "Souja Boy" dance, the Cha-cha Slide, the Electric Slide, the Macarena, "Gangnam Style," and "Money Musk" all have in common?All of them are or were popular amongst a subset of a community, had another subset of that same community wondering why on earth anyone would actually like that dance, and spread a bit in the cultural zeitgeist before heading off into the collective memory a short time later.Contra actually seems to have one of those at the moment -- "Money Musk" is making the rounds, and Jack Mitchell called it at the Friday Night Contra at Glen Echo recently.

This particular fad seems to be traced to the "Money Musk" flash mob that materialized during the Ralph Page Legacy Dance Weekend in New England and the video was subsequently put up online.

We as a contra community 1) don't really get many triple minor dances, and 2) don't really get fads of the dance-craze kind in our subculture. So it's interesting to watch when it happens.

As an aside, it keeps looking like, if you booked it through the figures, "Money Musk" might actually track to the song "Tell 'Em/Crank Dat" (the one that tracks to "Soulja Boy")...anyone want to help me check?

Update: Corrected the name of the dance weekend to the Ralph Page Legacy Dance Weekend.

This project has concluded as of mid-2013 (with an epilogue posted mid-2016) but we hope to see you soon on a contra dance floor! Meanwhile, head over to our Facebook page for upcoming techno contra events and other items of interest.

Author

I dance with abandon. I play with glowsticks. I look for music that is conducive to one or both. I play behind cameras. I write about all of the above. I'm based in Glen Echo's contra dance community outside of Washington, D.C., but I'm happy to go dance afield when I can. Lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat.